


The Permeability of a Forgotten Cold-Hearted King

by xioying



Series: anarchist on the dream smp [5]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dream Smp, Gen, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xioying/pseuds/xioying
Summary: The people in L’Manberg were after Technoblade. Hell, they even had a whole club called the Butcher Army after him, or whatever. He’d already retired from his days of chaos into a life of peace instead, so he’d really just like to lay low and remain undetected in the faraway snow for all the following years to come, sans his long-time friend Philza.So when an enderman-ghast hybrid shows up at his Nether portal, Techno doesn’t have any other choice than to dispose of him. What else is he supposed to do? Befriend that guy?
Series: anarchist on the dream smp [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080539
Comments: 10
Kudos: 121





	1. Frost Bite

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows some canon events but some are original. It doesn't necessarily follow the timeline too. Just to start you off somewhere: Tommy is still in exile and Techno has been living completely alone in the snow cottage so far.
> 
> I also took out the "canon lives" aspect, so you can just treat it as everyone is on their last canon life, if you will.
> 
> Inspired by Highfire by Eoin Colfer.

“Who _did_ this?”

Where the Community House stood was now a rubble of collapsed red and splintered wood. Ranboo still remembered how he’d described it in his diary: perhaps not the tallest and not the proudest of buildings, built out of humble bricks and refined stone, and Dream had even refurbished it at one point and added lush little greenery beneath the glass-paned windows running along the sides of the house. It wasn’t anything grand, but he’d heard it was the first house to have ever been built on these lands. Now it just looked like an eyesore of a heap of red and grey.

Tubbo, who’d been the first to voice his shock, sighed, lowering his head and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Quackity completely skipped the mourning stage and dove directly into vengeful anger. “It must’ve been that Technoblade bastard. Him and his explosives and his sick hobby of fucking L’Manberg up.”

It appeared to Ranboo the people of L’Manberg were so used to things being blown up that none of them even batted an eye at an explosion anymore.

Although, that didn’t mean they let the culprits run scot-free. “We… We would’ve _seen_ him,” Tubbo pointed out, voice flat and tired rather than sharp. “I don’t think it was him.” He cast a look at Ranboo, who was staring at the aftermath almost like he was marvelling it. “Ranboo, you were here the whole time, weren’t you? Did you see anyone?”

“I did not see anyone,” Ranboo replied honestly, turning to look Tubbo in the eyes.

“It was that pig fucker,” Quackity hissed. “He’s the only one who _would_ do this kind of thing.”

“I don’t know. There are plenty of people who’ve blown this place up.”

“Yeah, the other guy who blew this place up is dead, and Dream wouldn’t destroy this house specifically.”

Tubbo ignored the accusations. “I’ll ask Captain Puffy to help rebuild it. Dream won’t be happy if he sees this.”

Ever since Tommy had been exiled, the bags under Tubbo’s eyes had grown larger and darker by the day. He’d always been an easygoing guy, but his voice had rapidly devolved from lighthearted and mild to just tired and moody all the time. But he hadn’t lashed out at anyone since the incident with Tommy. Ranboo couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t been around, but he’d been told those two had been so close-knit they were probably sewn together better than his suit was. That was saying a lot, from Ranboo’s perspective.

Tubbo steered Quackity away by the shoulders, the latter still spitting slander at this _Technoblade_ person, whom Ranboo wasn’t quite clear about. Nobody would answer him when he asked except for Quackity, who showered him in a deluge of horrific tales that could all be summarised with the same line: this Technoblade person was a terrorist. And apparently some sort of pigman. A piglin? Ranboo’s tail flicked at the thought of another Nether creature.

Instead of following the two of them back further inside L’Manberg, Ranboo tiptoed over towards the remains of the Community House, as if he’d break it any further just by stepping on it. He squatted, placing his enderman hand on the ground, long fingers scraping through the top layer of bricks with bits of stone. TNT had clearly been the perpetrator, if it wasn’t the unlikely event of a very well-fed creeper. He picked a brick up, small grains of broken bricks slipping through his skeletal fingers.

The dust from the rubble was getting to his nostrils. He sneezed, a fireball cannon-balling out of the ghast side of his mouth and lighting up a few stray chips of wood that had decorated the building prior to its fall.

Ranboo jumped up and skittered away backwards. Maybe he should just leave Captain Puffy to it.

_Remember._

He jolted and suppressed a shiver. He plugged his left ear with the tendril-like appendages that served as his left hand. The voice didn’t come back.

Ahead of him, someone squeaked. When he looked up, Captain Puffy was resting a hooved hand over her chest where her heart would be.

“Oh, it’s just you. I thought you were—” _A monster_ , was the unfinished sentence, but she caught herself before plastering on a small, but genuine smile.

“Hello.” Ranboo unplugged his ear and lowered his hand.

“Yeah, hello. Tubbo filled me in. Why would anyone do something like this?” Puffy shook her head, looking past him at the wreck behind. “I really wished Philza was around to help rebuild this, too…”

“Phil?” Ranboo cocked his head sideways.

Philza was one of his neighbours. As far as he knew, Phil was a good man, but he always kept to himself and actively limited social interaction with people from L’Manberg. And he was always away on trips. Business trips? Nobody knew, and nobody really cared. Well, Ranboo cared, but as kindly as Phil treated him, he didn’t think anyone would want to tell anything to a Nether hellspawn like him, so he didn’t pry when Phil just awkwardly smiled at his question.

Puffy nodded. “Yeah, he’s pretty much the only other person who bothers filling in creeper holes. If I asked, he’d probably help out, but he’s away again.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know where he keeps going. Niki told me she sees him leaving by the dock, but then he kind of walks off into the forest. Weird stuff.”

“Oh, I see.” Well, _everyone_ had their own secrets. Ranboo pulled his sleeve a bit more over his ghast hand. “I could help. If you need my help, I mean.”

With a furrowed-brow smile, Puffy walked up to him and reached up to pat his shoulder with one hand, the over pointing up to the heavy, grey skies. “Nah, you better go back indoors! Looks like it’s gonna rain soon.”

Ranboo craned his neck upwards. “Oh, then—I really should head back indoors.” He laughed. It sounded a bit awkward.

“Right. You can help out later!”

It really was just rain, and nothing else. And Puffy was one of the most considerate people here at L’Manberg. Still, every time something like this happened, he was reminded: even though he stood on two feet like the rest of them, his body was made out of black dry bones and membranous tendrils in halves and it would never quite be the same as the soft flesh most of the rest of them were made out of, even if Puffy had several sheep-like characteristics. He’d heard of a creeper-like human creature that lived in L’Manberg, too, which was the closest Ranboo would get to, but his skill in redstone was unparalleled and people actually needed him.

Drops of water fell from the sky, landing on his skin and evaporating into steam almost instantly. The residue left a burning sensation on his face like it’d just been splashed with acid.

He’d better get going.

* * *

Ranboo hiked over the hill and craned his neck up. It wasn’t much, but there was clearly a man-made establishment further up ahead, by the shore. So he _was_ here.

It was hardly a developed place. Tommy wasn’t the best at building, admittedly. He just seemed to have a fascination with tall towering structures composed of cobblestone. Life in exile for Tommy was a little more than a cobblestone tower, it appeared; paths had actually been paved out by a shovel, and there was a small shelter with a two-sided sloping roof that housed a bed crammed on one side and a chest on the other. Beyond that, stripped wooden logs formed the perimeter that surrounded a civilisation, in the most pathetic meaning of the word. It was also despairingly small and Ranboo couldn’t see anything except a pile of barrels and a mooshroom further in.

Oh, there was also an angry blond child storming out of that area. “Ranboo!” Tinged with confusion, but also the classic Tommy pissed-off-ness.

“Hey,” Ranboo greeted, much more placidly in return. “How have you been doing?”

He walked down the path towards Tommy, who had stopped short just several paces in front of the stripped log area. A Nether portal was humming by the side.

“I’ve been doing _terribly_ , Ranboo, and—and it took you a whole _week_ to visit!” Tommy spat, face curled back into a snarl.

His eyes looked horribly dark; more grey than blue. Almost like the life had been drained out of him.

Ranboo’s tail curled, but he didn’t stop walking down. “I’m sorry,” he said, because he genuinely felt sorry. “It’s been busy back there.”

 _Busy_ because as firm and hardheaded as Tubbo had seemed when making his decision to exile Tommy, the boy had fallen silent just minutes after they watched Dream and Tommy boat away on the horizon. They had construction to do, paperwork to sign, meetings to attend, as expected of being the government—Tubbo couldn’t have cared any less even if he tried, really. He just looked so tired all the time. Seeing as how Quackity was seething about revenge and the Butcher Army most of the time, Ranboo had had to oversee most of what was going on in L’Manberg.

Hence why he couldn’t visit until now. He really would’ve visited sooner, if he could have. He knew Tommy had some sort of a bad reputation in L’Manberg, but they were friends. He’d shouldered the full blame for something they both partook in, too.

So they were friends.

And Tommy was appeased by Ranboo’s reason. “You’re right. It’s always busy back there.”

“It really is.”

“With government work and all that shit.”

“With government work and all that stuff,” Ranboo agreed.

Tommy’s shoulders slouched. “You know—someone else came by, just now, kind of. I saw them in the Nether and… _stuff_ happened, but anyway, they’ve left. But you know what, Ranboo?” He looked at Ranboo, then turned his head away to stare out into the ocean. “That person wasn’t even from the government.”

“Oh.”

“They weren’t even busy but they still didn’t even bother visiting for a whole _week_ —all I’ve been getting are _pity_ gifts.” Ranboo vaguely recalled Bad stashing a sack of wool on the backseat of his boat before he left one day. Presumably to build Tommy some statues, although Ranboo didn’t see any wool statues around here. “Nobody… Nobody even misses me.”

“That’s not true,” Ranboo immediately answered, because it wasn’t. The empty look on Tubbo’s face every day was proof enough.

Even though he’d meant to placate Tommy, Tommy snapped right back into irritation. “Well, none of them have even bothered _visiting_ except for you! And except for Dream! Even the bastard who exiled me in the first place cares for me more than they do!”

Ranboo stopped where they finally met halfway. Tommy was sometimes inconsistent, but he’d never been _this_ … volatile.

When they both stopped in front of each other, Tommy suddenly jabbed a finger in front of Ranboo’s face and glared up at him. “And you didn’t even come to my party! _None_ of you did!”

Party? Ranboo’s brows furrowed. “What party?”

“My beach party!”

This did little help. “What beach party?”

“ _My_ beach party!” Tommy repeated, voice gravelled over with anger as he gestured wildly to his right. Ranboo turned to look over. By the shore, wooden chairs and red-and-white beach parasols were set up by the lapping waves. A makeshift wooden bench was situated further back behind, away from the water. “Ghostbur took the time to send every one of you a personal invite, and none of you bothered!”

“A personal invite?” Ranboo’s face scrunched up. He’d never received an invite, though. It couldn’t be that he’d forgotten to record that down, right? He wrote everything down. “I never saw Ghostbur.”

“He helped me deliver personalised invites. To everyone.”

Deliver? So it was a written invite? Then it was even less likely Ranboo had just forgotten about it. He would’ve kept it somewhere on him. And in the off chance he’d misplaced it, if everyone had received an invitation, he would’ve caught wind of it, too. But he’d never heard hide nor hair about any beach party.

“I never got the invitation, Tommy.” He didn’t think anyone did.

When he looked back, Tommy wasn’t listening. Tommy was curling up into a ball on his haunches on the dirt below, face buried into his arms, shoulders shaking.

“Nobody even _cares_ about…”

Ranboo looked down at him, tilted his head, then squatted down next to him, patting his back as best as he could with the soft tendrils of his ghast hand. They were friends, after all, and though he hadn’t the faintest idea what this whole beach party business was about, what he did know now was that Tommy was sad and that wasn’t a very good thing.

Tommy remained balled up for maybe the next ten minutes. Ranboo continued patting his back as soothingly as he could, since apparently that was a manner of how humans soothed someone. Niki had done it to Tubbo when she first saw him after Tommy was exiled, and Niki was a very kind person, so he couldn’t go wrong by imitating her.

After Tommy pulled himself back up onto his feet, he wiped some snot away on his sleeve. His face was still wrinkled with anger, but now it had swung to direct at someone else.

“You know what—this is all Dream’s fault. The exile—and he keeps blowing up my things, Ranboo. Every time he sees me he tells me to throw my things in the pit and then he just lights up some TNT in there and explodes all my shit. Do you know what, Ranboo?”

Ranboo tipped his head forward. “What?”

“I’m going to stab that green bitch.”

And that was how they ended up on their preparation crusade. There was a village nearby which Tommy all but dragged Ranboo to, and they settled down and spread out all the emeralds they had between the both of them to check how much they could afford. The obvious answer: not much. Tommy had started from ground zero since Dream had taken all his possessions and set them ablaze, and Ranboo didn’t think he’d be going shopping after he crossed the seas to say hello to Tommy. They barely scraped by when purchasing bottles of experience and ender pearls from a master cleric in the village, and Ranboo thought he might’ve seen Tommy slip his hand into the cleric’s pocket for a few extra bottles of experience. He remained tight-lipped about it.

All their loot needed to be stored somewhere safe, out of Dream’s plain sight, so Tommy pulled Ranboo into Logstedshire and dug a hole down through the floor in his house.

He looked up at Ranboo, who had his head tilted quizzically down at him.

“Don’t just stand there. Help me dig out the _war room_.”

After they’d dug out a secret space under the house for Tommy’s _war room_ , Tommy lined the walls and floor with cobblestone, fittingly enough.

They needed diamonds, too, Tommy insisted. Ranboo had a lot of diamonds and even some netherite, back in L’Manberg. He offered to go get them.

Tommy’s face went all scrunched-up. “No, no, I’m done with borrowing armour from people.”

Ranboo did not ask him to elaborate. He just nodded.

Their diamond mining trip didn’t go quite as planned. Ranboo had been toiling away at the stone with his diamond pickaxe, Tommy not too far away mining with his iron pickaxe, and then Ranboo had heard a sharp high-pitched screech from Tommy’s direction and Ranboo had run over to find the blond child within deadly proximity of a pool of lava. And his sleeve was on fire. Ranboo patted it out with his ghast hand.

Tommy squinted up at Ranboo after this action. “You’re a bit of a freak, aren’t you?”

Ranboo’s tail curled. “I guess you could say that.”

“It’s fine. Everyone is a freak these days. Just not me.”

Perhaps, Ranboo mused. Tommy was a normal boy living in a grown-up world.

This was further reflected when Tommy ushered Ranboo into the Nether portal. He guided him along the platform of netherrack, over to a ledge where a narrow bridge of logs was jutting out. It sort of reminded Ranboo of the planks that criminals on ships were forced to walk.

“This is the screaming zone,” Tommy told him, and then turned out to the massive lava pool all the way beneath and did precisely that: scream.

Ranboo stood behind him and listened.

Afterwards, Tommy turned back to Ranboo with a sore expression. “My throat is dry as shit.”

“We should probably head back, then.” Even if either of them had remembered to bring a water bottle wherever they went, it was pointless bringing it to the Nether. Every last drop of water immediately evaporated into steam the moment it entered this dimension.

Tommy rubbed his eyes, laughing like he’d just heard a bad joke. “We should.”

All things considered, no matter how awfully Tommy’s mood had fluctuated the entire day, Ranboo could still comfortably say he had fun. That shouldn’t come as a surprise; friends were always fun to be around. Even if they were in exile and planning to throw a massive coup against just one person. It wasn’t everyday that people acknowledged how non-human he was—on a non-aggressive note, that was. Maybe Tommy would get out of exile one day, one way or another. And then he’d return to L’Manberg. And then they could go back to doing whatever fun things they were doing before this, minus the part where they burned other people’s houses down and vandalised the remnants.

Before they entered the Nether portal back to Tommy’s base, Tommy paused. Ranboo followed suit, looking down at him. His eyes had been dulled to almost black when Ranboo first saw him, but now it looked like some traces of the vivid blue was returning. Maybe.

“You should probably go back home soon, Ranboo. It’s getting late.”

Before they entered, the sun had already been close to the horizon. “Yeah, I probably should.”

“And I know all we did… all I did was prepare for war against Dream today.” Tommy lowered his head, hesitated, then pressed on. “I just wanted to say… thank you for visiting me today. It means a lot.”

“No problem. I’ll come back to visit again.” He paused, then added, “If you want.”

“Sure, man.”

Ranboo couldn’t help but break out a jagged smile. A purple particle drifted around him.

They stepped into the portal. Ranboo gave the Nether one last look as the whirring sound of being transported filled his ears, and then his whole vision turned to purple.

There were a few very wrong things that happened when he stepped back out.

Before he even regained his vision, there was a freezing cold that bit at his skin. Logstedshire had been much warmer; even if night had already fallen, Ranboo wasn’t sure if it should be _this_ cold.

When he finally stepped back out of the Nether portal, his shoes met snow that crunched under his feet.

He’d ended up in a snow biome.

Then something blunt butted him on the back of his head and all he saw turned to black.


	2. Hypothermia

Once upon a time, Technoblade had been respected in these lands.

He had everything to show for it. When he first entered the lands of Dream SMP, he wasn’t welcomed with exactly open arms, but the traces of awe left behind through gasps and whispers from the citizens could be felt all the way even as he had made his way to Pogtopia. There was a time people bowed their heads ever so slightly when he was just in their presence. There was a time that people trifled with him, only to be put in place a mere fight later and they never tangoed with him again.

Now everyone was after his head. And those _everyone_ consisted of people whom he’d once trusted enough to allow them entry into his most secret of secret bases, even lent them enchanted netherite armour that was never returned, and then when he expressed his molten lava fury against governments for the thousandth time, they had gotten upset with him just because they were now under a new government that hadn’t cooked up any trouble _yet._ Obviously. How was a two-minute old government going to prove its worthlessness so soon? Now they all wanted to decapitate him and put his pig head up above a fireplace the same way they did with moose heads. In the impossible event that they actually managed to kill him, he thought, he would morph back into his human form at the last second. Thinking about them filled him with _that_ much spite.

He fumbled with his white cravat around his neck. Maybe he shouldn’t think about them so much. He had promised himself that he’d turn over a new leaf, and this new leaf was going to be the most peaceful and least wartorn leaf anyone had ever seen. And if he wanted to stay on that course, curbing his anger by not thinking about those ridiculous people back in L’Government would be a good first step.

Philza was the only good thing back in that wretched sorry state of a country. They’d been allies, then comrades, then friends for years uncountable and Techno knew if he could trust anyone not to backstab him at this point or at any point, it’d be Phil. He wistfully thought about convincing Phil to move away from _those_ people, who, if you thought about it, indirectly caused the murder of his own son, but alas, that was impossible.

Because as much as Techno liked his snowy cottage, there was nothing out here. Most crops didn’t grow. Live animals were few and far between. And clothes weren’t going to sew themselves out of nothing. There were two villages relatively nearby, but they were pretty much in the same predicament, or even worse because most of them were frail and defenceless. Hunting was not an option for them. They just had a surplus of rhubarbs and Eskimo potatoes, which, to be frank, Techno was getting sick of eating to the point that thinking about them made him queasy. On good days, he could hunt a polar bear down or even a caribou, but again: few and far between.

He was absolutely clueless as to why there wasn’t anything out here. More than several times, he’d considered moving his base to somewhere that wasn’t as lifeless. But this was the best hiding place—a snowy place with absolutely nothing worthwhile to stop for. The crazy Butcher Army would never think he’d settled down here of all places.

That was where Phil came in. As much as L’Manberg had been blown up by TNT and then literal monsters from hell, it still had a somewhat functioning economy. Phil worked as the middle man; Techno would hand over chunks of ice those weird people back there seemed to really like for construction in the Nether, and they’d trade with Phil some beef, wool, and sometimes he’d get homemade things like strange sandwich concoctions or weird oil-less aglio olio. Techno did not question Phil. Some things were simply better left unsaid.

He shrugged his red cloak on. In any case, he’d set up his retirement plan and he was very much hoping to set it in stone. In the past, he’d been dubbed as a blood god or a war deity but that was exactly where he wanted to leave it—in the past. Maybe he might have to do a spontaneous murder or two if anyone ever stumbled upon his living quarters here. But he’d minimise all violence.

Yes, he had resolved to minimise all violence. And on the short walk back from the icy pond to his house, a strange black-and-white figure was standing outside his Nether portal in strange stillness.

Techno blamed his reflexes for slamming the flat site of his pickaxe against the back of the stranger’s head.

 _Oops,_ he thought, as they collapsed face-first into the snow.

The stranger was hardly breathing, and it was also hardly human. The right half of it was black and dry and much like an enderman. The left half was white, membranous and full of tendrils and completely similar to those crying baby nuisances in the Nether. Techno might’ve felt weirded out if he were anyone else, but since he could shapeshift into a piglin, he was less prone to judging people… or creatures, whatever, by their appearances.

He crouched down and pressed two fingers against one side of its neck at the front. A pulse.

He’d have to bring it in for questioning. How had it wiggled its way all the way over here? No one knew the way here, especially not from the Nether. Only Phil did. Phil hadn’t snitched. That just wasn’t a possibility.

Techno wrapped an arm around its waist then hoisted it over his shoulder. It was unbelievably lengthy, now that he’d actually picked it up. He needed answers. And then he’d have to permanently silence it the unfortunate way.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d procrastinated on many things in his life, but he hadn’t expected his retirement plan to be one of them.

* * *

When Ranboo came to, the ground beneath him wasn’t the wet snow that would’ve burned his skin, but some sort of hard wood. Also, he was laying in a weird position where his torso was twisted much too much to the right and his legs and arms were folded in, as if someone had tried to squeeze him into a compact body bag to dispose of him.

“So you’re awake.”

He jolted and hit his head against something hard above him in the process. A chest toppled out from on top of him onto the floor, a mess of unrelated items like leather and food and diamond swords spilling out from inside. His captor ahead of him looked incredibly unimpressed.

Incidentally, Ranboo recognised his captor—but not because they’d met before in real life. It was unmistakable: the posters around L’Manberg depicting a man with long pink hair and a shameless royal getup and a crown, sometimes with tusks or sometimes just fully a piglin. The very same icon of destruction was sitting across the room, in front of a ladder up, cross-legged and balancing the curved end of the upside-down pickaxe against the ground, hands folded on top at the end of the handle.

 _Technoblade,_ his brain registered. He could already see and hear a hallucination of Tommy turning to him with a grim look on his face: _you fucked up._

“I have some questions for you,” Techno continued, voice flat. He didn’t make a single move that could hint at an intent of harm, but Ranboo still froze up.

He had indeed, in Tommy’s would-be words, fucked up. Though he wasn’t sure how.

He was going to die, wasn’t he? It felt like it. Nobody knocked someone out and brought them to their messy basement filled with cobwebs and messy arrangements of crates and chests and—there was a skeleton trapped in one corner and a zombified piglin in another, both with pumpkin heads.

Ranboo felt queasy. Going to throw up. This Technoblade had the undead on display like a zoo. If he wasn’t going to be killed, he was going to be stuffed in a corner and walled up and joining those two as part of the exhibition.

“Sir,” Ranboo began, and tensed up in case Techno immediately came leaping at him and scything away with his pickaxe. Techno just stared down at him. Ranboo pushed himself off the awkward position to sit cross-legged, facing him. As slowly as he could without tripping over the words: “I don’t know where this is… I came here by accident. I entered the Nether portal, but it didn’t take me where it should’ve.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is. I would never go into a snow biome voluntarily. It injures me.” He gestured to the enderman half of him, hoping Techno would get it.

“That is _unfortunate_ ,” Techno drawled, with a dangerous emphasis on the last word. He rocked the pickaxe from side to side. “Are you… from L’Manberg?”

“Yes.”

“That is even _more_ unfortunate.”

Ranboo didn’t like the sound of that.

He didn’t like any of this. Shaking his legs up and down while cross-legged, he cast a look around the room. No exits, just junk. The only way out was the ladder behind Techno. And Techno wasn’t letting him get out of here alive, with the creeping deadliness to his tone blaring sirens to his future intentions.

“Alright,” Techno said, and Ranboo curled his fingers. _Look for an opening._ “Describe what exactly happened for you to have _accidentally_ come here in… sentences of ten words or less.”

This must be a secret base, if Techno was so bent on finding out how Ranboo showed up here. “I was visiting my friend in exile.” He might’ve seen Techno snort back a laugh. “We went to the Nether to talk. When we returned, I was expecting to return to where Tommy lived near the shore, but I ended up here instead.”

“That’s more than ten words.”

Ranboo shrunk back. “Sorry.”

Techno didn’t seem to bother. Frowning, he looked lost in thought, drumming his fingers against the handle of his pickaxe.

It didn’t make sense that Ranboo had ended up here, either. Space was warped in the Nether, but if Tommy had never come out through the portal into the snow biome, and Techno probably hadn’t been to Logstedshire through the portal either, judging from his behaviour, then it didn’t make sense that Ranboo suddenly would. An outlier in a pattern of events.

Ranboo was suddenly acutely aware of how empty his pockets felt. He gave himself a quick pat-over: nothing, except the familiar rectangular feel of what he knew was his diary. All of his other belongings must’ve been confiscated while he was unconscious. To be fair, he wasn’t going to miss much: just his netherite pickaxe and spare emeralds that hadn’t been used for trading. Apart from that, just stray blocks. He wasn’t so concerned about his loss of hard work and materials more than he was about how he had nothing to defend himself with now.

His eyes trailed over the mess of items over the floor. Techno didn’t seem to be very fond of housekeeping: everything was everywhere. Still, amidst all the junk, he couldn’t locate any tools or weapons.

Finally, Techno rolled his shoulders and sighed. “This is so confusin’. I’ll just relocate the portal. That should fix it.”

“It probably would,” Ranboo agreed, if just to gain favour with his captor. It probably wasn’t working.

“Yeah.” Techno smiled crookedly at him, and was beginning to hoist himself off the floor. Ranboo scrambled to mimic his action. “I _really_ can’t have anyone findin’ out that I live out here. You know? Kind of like a state secret.”

“I’m good with secrets,” Ranboo said earnestly. It was also a plea. For his life.

“Are you?”

“Very.”

“Hmm.” Techno had stood up to his full height now, glowing pickaxe in hand. “Well, you’ve been a lovely guest, uh, Weird Thing Whose Name I Do Not Know. It was a truly erudite conversation. But it’s gettin’ late now, so I’ll just do whatever I have to do, alright?”

Come to think of it, the place was horribly dusty. And his nostrils were starting to tingle. “Um. What exactly do you have to do?”

Techno rushed forward with his pickaxe poised behind him ready to swing, and in the same motion, he stirred up a flurry of dust. The tingle in Ranboo’s nostrils evolved into a full-blown tackle and with one great sneeze, a fireball shooting out from his mouth, and all he heard was a swear before the the fireball burst into flames all over the junk and the items and the chests and everything. He ducked his head and ran, the flames mostly harmless to him, and he made it past Techno before something caught in the back of his shirt. He whirled around and toppled over from the loss of balance, the pickaxe having torn through part of the back of his jacket and maybe shirt.

Even with the flames crackling all around him, Techno was still hell bent on making sure all loose ends were tied up, or, in other words, putting Ranboo to eternal sleep. And Ranboo was sure, whether he made it out alive or not, the image of him standing amidst a famished fire feeding on his belongings and the pickaxe raised like a scythe over his head was going to be forever burned into his mind.

And then the fireworks exploded.

Both of them jumped as the multicoloured flares shot off behind Techno, the source probably being somewhere in all this disorganised junk, but Ranboo, maybe because he was further away, recovered faster. He tore away from the scene and swung up the ladder like a chimpanzee before he felt a hand grabbing at his ghast leg—which was composed of thin, slippery tentacle-like appendages, so the hand just slipped right through, taking his shoe away along with it.

He rolled onto the next floor up. It was pretty much identical to the previous one, junk _everywhere_ , minus the two undead captives on display. And that there were double doors.

Ranboo didn’t even have time to check how far Techno was behind him. He heard footsteps, and he threw open the double doors to reveal an endless field of snow. And his right foot was missing his shoe. Ghasts hated water, as most mobs from the Nether did, but hopefully they didn’t hate it as much as endermen did. He burst into a sprint outside.

The snow itched on his ghast foot, but it didn’t hurt the same way it did on his enderman half. He puffed, breaths visible as mist in the cold, and he didn’t even have anytime to register the numbing winds around him. The only thing he focused on was running, even if it was on a straight line.

Perhaps his only dose of luck came in the form of a distinct black shape in the distance. A Nether portal.

As soon as he caught sight of it he felt a whole body weight being thrown full force onto him and he was tossed onto the snow like a ragdoll. The snow melted from his body heat and scorched his enderman skin the same way fire did to humans. He let out a muffled cry, only for it be choked down as the blade of the pickaxe hooked near his neck.

“I hope you don’t take this personally,” Techno said, sounding much more coarse than before.

Ranboo wiggled to barely look up. The full moon was bright overhead, but he could still make out a much bigger figure above him, with an animalistic long face and pricked up ears and snout and tusks and pink fur that definitely did not belong to a human.

He’d seen these on the posters, too. Techno’s pig form.

And, for a moment that felt like an eternity, Ranboo considered just giving in there and then. No, he hadn’t lived a completely fulfilling life, and he’d never found a place where he felt like he belonged, but hey. He visited Tommy in the end, at least once, and they’d had some fun times. He had spent all of his times in L’Manberg, in Dream SMP, like he’d been walking in circles. Getting nowhere. Maybe, if it was going to just be an infinite loop, being put to rest was a mercy.

An arrow spiked out from the darkness and pierced Techno’s coat and into his shoulder. He flinched and for a split second, enough of his weight lifted off Ranboo’s back.

All visions of acceptance of his fate were torn away and Ranboo gripped the snow beside him and, with whatever might he could muster, slid forward like a sled in the snow, kicking his legs free and up.

“Are you _kiddin’_ me?!” he heard Techno holler, followed by a series of bows shooting and zombies gargling.

Maybe it was because he was part enderman that the undead didn’t seem to care for him. Maybe the undead just had an undying hatred towards those dressed in overdone garb, and Techno definitely won in that segment, with the crown being the cherry on top of it all.

Ranboo didn’t look back to check. He didn’t look back all the way, only until his feet came to a puttering halt and he almost crashed into the side of the Nether portal, chest heaving as the purple particles swirled around him.

Techno was nowhere in sight.

He shut his eyes until he heard the dimension warp into that of one with sizzling lava. Then he tumbled out and slid against the side of it, picking himself up just seconds later at the thought of Techno following up with his pursuit.

His legs trudged. He could feel his heartbeat drum in his ears. His throat was always dry, but now exceptionally so.

_You fucked up._

Yes. He didn’t know how, but he definitely had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to AO3 statistics, only a small percentage of readers leave a kudos. If you enjoyed this so far, please leave a kudos. It's completely free, and you can always un-kudos.
> 
> i'm sorry. i am also probably not the first to make this kind of joke on here


	3. still

Swearing was a gateway to rage, and rage invited chaos, so Techno had sworn off swearing. (He liked to think he was funny.) Despite his resolution, he took him everything to bite back a cuss when he looked up from where he’d finished impaling the last zombie through its skull, only to find the dark empty snow fields all around him and no Nether creature hybrid in sight. Of course he had escaped to live to tell the tale.

He could chase after him. He _could_ , and he considered the option for a good few seconds before dismissing it completely. There was a mountain of undead beneath his feet now, and this work had taken _minutes_ , minutes in which his little half-half guest could’ve easily run far, far away with. And from the direction he’d been running it, he would make it safely to that Nether portal. _Hopefully_ he would spawn through Techno’s portal in the Nether and become completely lost and then stabbed to death by piglins or something, finishing the job he couldn’t. Although, with the way fate seemed to be working against him completely ever since he came into these lands, the creature had probably ended up in familiar Nether territory, the one he came from.

Techno wanted to tear that portal down immediately and build a new one. But he couldn’t be sure if it would connect to the same portal in the Nether, and he knew Phil arbitrarily chose whether to come across the oceans or through the Nether, and in the event he decided on the latter the next day, he didn’t want Phil to get confused in there. Even if the monochrome thing ran all the way back to L’Manberg and ratted him out to all those evil government officials, there was no way they’d make it over immediately, especially not through these snowy fields at night. And Phil would probably page him about it the moment they left anyway.

When Phil arrived the next day, he’d taken a gander at the first floor of Techno’s basement before going up to the attic. “Your basement looks fucking terrible.”

Techno dramatically slid off his bed. “Why would you hurt my feelin’s like this, Phil?”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. “It looks like—shit went down. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I do not want to talk about it at all,” Techno grumbled. “But I have to. It’s a matter of confidentiality, you see.” He fumbled for his crown that was somewhere on the bedside drawer. His hand could not find it.

Phil generously offered him a packet with steak inside. “Oh, I see. I put all the stuff downstairs, by the way.”

Techno took it and his other hand found his crown. Balancing the crown on top of his head, he ripped the packet open. “Thank you.” And he meant it. “You were in L’Manberg all the way until this mornin’, right?”

“Yeah. Nothing’s been going on. Well, there’s a whole—there’s a whole _army_ out to get you, but the most they’ve done is propaganda and swearing allegiance to eating bacon only for breakfast. They’re not a threat.”

The bacon thing was getting _seriously_ old. “Is there a… black-and-white… person… creature thing that lives there?”

“Ranboo? Yeah.” _Ran-bow?_ What a name. Techno wasn’t one to talk, though. “He’s kind of a weird species, but he’s a good guy. He came back late last night and he didn’t get out of his house yet before I left, but he seems fine.”

Techno blinked, tearing a part of the steak with his teeth. “Oh, I might’ve traumatised him yesterday.”

Phil looked very amused. “What… What the fuck?”

Picking himself off the floor, Techno sidled past Phil towards the ladder leading down. “You see, he came through the Nether portal yesterday. From what I know, he was visitin’ Tommy before this. Unless this Ran-bow person was lyin’ to me, he entered from a different portal but somehow ended up at _mine._ And it’s never happened before.” He turned back to Phil with a raised brow. “I have no idea how that happened.”

If anyone might know the answer, Techno figured it would be Phil. Phil wasn’t ancient in age just yet, but he was somehow very wise. Not wise in the sense of giving out prophecies or departing hidden knowledge, but wise in the sense that he probably devoured encyclopedias for breakfast when he was a child.

Phil rubbed his chin with his hand in a V-shape, frowning. “That’s weird.” And then after a moment more of contemplation, he shrugged, rubbing his arms. “It might be because he’s part enderman.”

Techno had had an inkling that the kid was part enderman, just going by appearances. “What does it do?”

“No idea. But he’s got enderman traits and stuff. And they always teleport around, and it kind of functions the same way as a Nether portal. Maybe their powers just kind of collided and… fucked up.” Phil dropped his arms. “But he’s been using them normally all this time. Maybe something different happened to him when he entered the other portal.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t fucking know. It’s not every day a ghast and an enderman decide to, y’know, get it on.”

Techno’s face scrunched up with visible disgust. “ _Never_ say that to me again.”

Phil laughed at him.

They both descended the ladder onto the second floor, the one with Edward the enderman trapped in a boat. Techno briefly wondered if he could’ve trapped Ran-bow the same way, but the thought didn’t linger. He had a whole basement to repair. Nothing of value had been lost in the fire, he was quite certain, but it was going to be a pain. Fireworks weren’t hard to craft, but it was annoying, and he was pretty sure he’d lost half of his stash just from that incident.

The second floor was a mess, too. Boxes and chests everywhere. _It’s like a fucking warehouse,_ Phil had told him once. Techno disagreed. He was confident warehouses were much neater and more organised. But it wasn’t like he had too much difficulty finding what he needed in his house, so what did it matter?

Techno unlatched one of the chests Phil had shipped over from L’Manberg. More food supplies. “So, anyway, we need to kill him.”

“Do we really have to?” Techno looked up to give Phil an offended look. “Look, he’s—I know you hate everyone in L’Manberg, and he kind of _is_ part of the government—”

“Then he is livin’ on borrowed time.”

Phil snorted, but continued. “He’s a good kid. He doesn’t cause problems. I think you’d like him.”

“I’d like him dead,” Techno offered unkindly.

“Really. Just think about it. If you’re really worried, you could always kidnap him again and have him work around here as… fucking, I don’t know, hired help. This place looks awful.” Wow. _Ouch._ “He hasn’t told anyone back there, I’m sure of it. Quackity and the others still have no clue where you are.”

“Or maybe he plans on squealin’ later in the day.” Phil’s persuasion was starting to make him falter, but he pressed on. So far he had a reputation of failing to maintain almost all of his plans in his life, but he was determined to see his retirement plan through. Even if it meant having to forcefully tweeze out some thorns. “I don’t like that someone else that isn’t you knows about this place, Phil. I’ve already built a whole house here; that’s _way_ more than I expected, and I don’t want to have to do it again. They’d never think I’m out here. It’s the perfect hidin’ place, and there being a threat to it is just less than ideal. It’s just _less than ideal_.”

Phil sighed, leaning against the wall as Techno maneuvered around the mess like a pack rat. “Alright, fine. But I’m not gonna help you kill him.” He folded his arms into his baggy sleeves. “I don’t think I could stomach it.”

Chewing on the last bit of steak, Techno threw the wrapper into the bin and missed gracefully. That was fine. Techno was used to hunting solo. If Phil didn’t want to do something, he wasn’t going to force him, either.

He sifted around the area he knew where he’d left Ran-bow’s things that he’d confiscated. It hadn’t been much, he remembered. Objectively speaking, the most valuable thing on him had been his netherite pickaxe, followed by his suit, and obviously Techno wasn’t going to take away the latter. He’d carried some emeralds with him, but it was less than a stack so it was pretty much worthless, although Techno stashed them away anyway.

When he’d been going through his items, Techno had pulled out a book that read _Do not read_ on the front and he had proceeded to open it. Some kind of diary. Techno let him keep that one. Stealing other people’s diaries was where he drew the line, although kidnapping and murdering sat well with him. It wasn’t like the book was going to be a core part of Ran-bow’s escape, anyway, which Techno hadn’t been expecting him to pull off. Stupid undead mobs.

He was facing one dilemma now, and that it was how he had no idea how to get rid of Ran-bow. Since Phil wasn’t willing to help him, he had to do the dirty work himself, which he was pretty used to doing. This time it was a little more than invade-and-kill, though. Ran-bow was an exception, as per his imaginary terms and conditions of his retirement plan stated, but everyone else wasn’t. Meaning, he’d have to do the deed in secret.

Techno pressed his hands against his temples. He was going to have to think of a plan. And it needed to be effective immediately.

* * *

“Ranboo, how are you feeling?”

Ranboo felt like he was going to vomit.

The queasiness stirred in his stomach ever since he woke up, like it had lasted since last night. In his haze of lost memories, he’d consulted his diary, and the last entry consisted of wildly creased pages and horrendously bad handwriting. He still managed to pick out the details and the reason for why his pockets were practically empty save his diary, and now he wanted to vomit. He was sure he wanted to forget all of it right in front of Techno so he would just be let go, but Techno knew he knew now even if he was supposed to consistently forget everything and he doubted Techno was going to let any threats run free. Besides, Quackity had told tales of how murderous Techno was. He was the kind to hunt others down just for sport, wasn’t he?

What if a certain bulky piglin just swooped in for the kill the moment he stepped out of his house? Ranboo didn’t want to step out of his house now.

Except now Tubbo was calling for him, since he was still in his house and it was past noon, and it was very rare for Ranboo to still be dithering in his house past noon. He threw the sheets off his bed uncharacteristically and trudged up to his door.

When he opened it, only Tubbo stood out there, expression creased with concern. No killer piglins.

“Hi,” he greeted, and resisted the overwhelming urge to shut the door and go back to bed. That would be rude.

“Are you okay?”

Ranboo thought about it. “I’m missing a shoe.” For his ghast foot. Techno had pulled it clean off and it had probably been incinerated in the fire.

“Yeah, and… _how_?” Tubbo was squinting at him. “You came back late and people said you looked all battered and all. And now you’re missing a shoe?”

Just spill everything to him, Ranboo thought. If the Butcher Army took care of Technoblade, then his worries would be wiped away, squeaky-clean like they’d never existed. He didn’t even know the guy; his death wouldn’t mean anything apart from the slightest tinge of pity and maybe a nanogram of guilt.

On the other hand, spilling everything would mean a sure target on his back. If he could convince Techno that he hadn’t told anyone, and he really hadn’t, wasn’t there a better chance of Techno relenting and letting him go? Maybe he’d be forced to move out from L’Manberg. But to be honest, he didn’t have much going for him in this country. Although—what were the odds of that actually happening? Techno sparing him? But if he told everyone—wasn’t that forcing Techno’s hand into killing everyone who knew, too? He seemed like he _really_ wanted to stay hidden, though Ranboo didn’t know why.

He couldn’t have felt any more divided than that moment. He wanted to consult someone.

And Tubbo as he stood was not going to be a very good advisor. The dark bags under his eyes looked even more grim and bulgy than yesterday, if that was even possible.

“I went to the Nether, got attacked by a piglin and lost my shoe during that.” Technically not a lie. He did go to the Nether. He just left it and _then_ got attacked.

Tubbo raised a brow. “From just a piglin? Was it a super piglin or something?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Near the portal,” Ranboo mumbled vaguely, rubbing his eyes.

This didn’t alleviate a single one of Tubbo’s concerns, clearly. “Should we get people to take care of it?”

“No, no, it’s… it went away. I killed it.” He hoped Tubbo was picking up on his wildly differing testimonies, although it was kind of hard not to.

“Okay…” Nothing was okay at all, but Tubbo looked like a wreck of confusion and concern, so Ranboo managed the ghost of a smile for him. “I’ll be honest, Ranboo. You look terrible.”

Ranboo’s smile dropped. “Um. Pardon?”

“No, not that you’re ugly. I meant it looks like someone beat you with a sack of potatoes.”

“Oh.”

“Several times.”

“Oh.”

“There is a big bump on the back of your head,” Tubbo said bluntly.

Ranboo reached up to pat the back of his head. There really was one. He’d been too deep into the throes to notice, probably. “Oh.”

There was a small silence, and Tubbo finally asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay. I was just… unlucky.” Tubbo would not even be able to begin to comprehend _how_ unlucky.

Tommy. He needed to visit Tommy.

They’d gone through Tommy’s portal, after all. Had Tommy ever chanced upon the snowy fields before? He was alive, though. Which meant he’d either never gone there, or Techno thought he was barely a threat since he wasn’t from L’Manberg, not anymore. And they were friends. And he knew Tommy and Techno had once been on the same team, so if anyone knew Techno well enough, it would be Tommy. At least, he was Ranboo’s best shot. He didn’t know anyone else who was tight with Techno, and he figured he shouldn’t ask. He’d drawn enough suspicion for a whole week, honestly.

He smoothed his hair over where the bump was. He probably wasn’t in any state to be crossing the oceans to find Tommy, though.

But it didn’t matter. He had to go. He was pretty much living on _borrowed time._

And Tubbo finally conceded. “If you say so.” Ranboo was already ducking below the doorframe and closing the door behind him, ready to depart, when Tubbo continued. “Are you busy today? Captain Puffy said to tell you she’d be working on rebuilding the Community House and that she’d welcome your help anytime.”

 _Sorry, Captain Puffy._ “I’m gonna be busy.” _Very_ busy.

Tubbo, in a very unsure voice: “Okay.”

It was at this time Quackity came shouldering past other people all the way up to Tubbo. From afar, Ranboo could already see the firm look set into his facial features, and when he made it to right up in front both of them, he was clearly out of breath. He’d just rushed over.

“Tubbo, I found a lead.”

If Ranboo’s brain had been functioning at just a modicum of speed faster, he would’ve thought about this: Quackity and Tubbo were both part of the Butcher Army. Quackity was absolutely completely super hell bent on butchering a certain pig terrorist. Him finding a lead to his goal was him finding a lead to Technoblade.

“What is it, Big Q?”

Like he said: incredibly unlucky.

Ranboo was already pulling away from the conversation in the direction of the docks.

If he’d stayed to listen, he would’ve learned that there _was_ someone residing in L’Manberg who had an incredibly tight relation with Techno.


	4. Turnover

“Yeah, The Blade lives over there.”

From where they were sitting on the grass next to the path in the middle of Logstedshire, Tommy jutted a boney finger across over the hills. Ranboo’s eyes almost bugged out of their sockets.

“It’s not really that far. You could walk there.”

You could _walk_ there? “Have you ever… walked _there_?”

Tommy stared at Ranboo like Ranboo had just condemned his mother to a very bad place. “I don’t know if you know, Ranboo, but The Blade and I have a bit of history. The dickhead betrayed me. Also, he is quite pissed as shit at me, so I don’t think visiting him is a good idea.”

“It really isn’t,” Ranboo agreed, but his gaze was fixed over the hills in the direction where Tommy had pointed him. “Then—how did you find out..?”

“Dream told me a while ago. Dream—Dream hasn’t been here for the last few days, actually.”

Right. Dream was tormenting Tommy and all in exile and Ranboo was supposed to be helping him to prep in his eventual comeback where they would both stab Dream’s authority into nothing, or so Ranboo assumed was Tommy’s plan, but now Ranboo was just a bit very occupied with the fact that this supposed war demon was probably still out for his head. And Ranboo had also stupidly told him where he lived.

 _Right._ Tommy had resolved to fight back against Dream. And Ranboo was supposed to be here as his unconditional support. _Supposed to._ Now Ranboo had run into his own ditch of trouble and he was split between unloading all of his burdens onto Tommy to finally get some of his troubles off his shoulder, or leaving Tommy in the dark along with everyone else.

Except Tommy wasn’t from L’Manberg, and he’d teamed with Techno before, so maybe out of all of them, Tommy was his safest bet.

Ah, screw it.

“Tommy,” he began slowly. Then, in a rush, “I think Technoblade is out to kill me.”

Tommy’s head turned back almost mechanically to meet Ranbo’s gaze. “What?”

From there, Ranboo ran the scenario down to him: how he’d ended up at a different portal than the one they came from, how he’d walked out barely into a snowy field before he’d been knocked unconscious, how he’d ceremoniously been brought to Techno’s house and how he also set fire to some of Techno’s house and how he barely escaped with his life to live to tell the tale.

Tommy, almost like clockwork: “You fucked up.”

“I don’t know _where_ I did,” Ranboo mumbled, almost like a whine, flapping his crossed legs up and down.

“You breathe on the same planet as that bitch and you have fucked up.” Hadn’t everyone, then? “Ranboo—let me tell you something. The Blade and I, we were once on the same team. The same side. We even shared a home called Pogtopia. He’s a bit of a character, you know, but we were… _comrades._ And we had this bond of trust. I just didn’t know he—” Tommy paused, straightening his back and then slouching, as if buying time to find the words. “He was more trusting than I knew. He even lent me the _Axe of Peace_.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Ranboo told him honestly.

Tommy shook his head, looking far away into the ocean. Reminiscing? “It was the most powerful axe I’d ever _seen_.” Then he looked back at Ranboo. “And I lost it and also started a government in front of his face, so now he is very pissed.”

“Oh.” A moment later, Ranboo admitted, “That kind of sounds like your… your fault.”

“He _blew up_ L’Manberg!” Tommy hissed defensively, but instantly hunched over and plucked at the grass. “...I guess we both betrayed each other.”

Maybe. Ranboo joined him in plucking at the grass in front of him.

“I reckon if he ever sees me, he would want to stab me, too. So,” Tommy patted Ranboo’s enderman shoulder, and then his own, “we are in the same boat.”

Maybe Tommy wasn’t under the same circumstances as Ranboo was, but he made a fair point. Being on Techno’s blacklist kind of did put them in the same leaking boat.

“Does he have any weaknesses?” None at all?

Tommy stared at him dead-on. “Women.”

Whether that was a joke of poor taste or actuality, Ranboo did not clarify.

“Anything else?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy huffed defeatedly, leaning back to stare up at the sky. “He keeps talking about peer pressure when he blew Tubbo’s arms off at the festival.”

He _what_? “What happened to Tubbo’s arms?” Ranboo asked bewilderedly.

“They’re fake and shit.” After a moment: “Prosthetics, they’re called.”

Ranboo had never even noticed.

“And he never wants to admit that he’s done any wrong,” Tommy sniffed, then looked back down at Ranboo. “Anyway, we are in deep shit now, Ranboo, so what I propose we do is we collect _intel_.”

Well, that was exactly what Ranboo had sought Tommy out to do, and while he’d learned some interesting information about them teaming up, the fact that Tommy proposed they further collect _more_ was already telling. They both had no idea what Techno would be up to.

Ranboo’s tail curled. “And how?”

Tommy finally stood, pulling his arms behind and stretching them. Ranboo hunched over and heaved himself to his feet, too.

By the time Ranboo had arrived, the day was already peeking over into the afternoon. Logstedshire was _far_ , after all, even if it could be reached by Nether travel. And it had taken Ranboo quite a bit of skirting around the bush before he finally got to his topic of Technoblade, so if he had to guess, it was most likely mid to late afternoon. He couldn’t really tell. The sky was droopy and dark grey, clouds hanging heavily way overhead.

“There is this old man who lives in L’Manberg,” Tommy told him, face set in firm seriousness for once. “He and The Blade are friends. Old friends, because they are old, and they’ve been friends for a very long time. He could probably provide us the _intel_ we need.”

There was someone like that in L’Manberg? “So we kidnap him?”

Tommy scoffed. “No, no, we don’t do kidnapping around here. The Blade taught me something while we were comrades. It’s called _advanced interrogation techniques_.” And then he began digging a hole down into the ground.

Although he didn’t know what Tommy was up to, Ranboo joined him in digging into the ground. “‘Advanced interrogation’... what do we do?” he asked, bobbing on his feet.

There was a pause in their conversation as Tommy began hollowing out an area in the ground, scraping out a rectangular room that much reminded Ranboo of his war room underneath his house here, especially with the way he was lining it with cobblestone again. When Ranboo finally inquired about the intent behind his actions, Tommy then declared this the _advanced interrogation room._ It was beginning to sound just like a kidnapping.

“Advanced interrogation is when we ask someone a question and if they don’t answer, we force them to answer with… incentives.”

Ranboo’s tail flicked, slotting a block of cobblestone in the corner. “What kind of incentives?”

“Intimidation.” So, like a kidnapping. “We’ll put him down here, just so he doesn’t run away. And maybe we should get a baby zombie for good measure, maybe we should get a baby—”

By the time the words _baby zombie_ had tumbled out of Tommy’s mouth, the gears in Ranboo’s head spun so quickly they locked into place for a mere second and he froze and then stared up at Tommy. “You want to kidnap _Phil_?”

“I want to advancely interrogate him,” Tommy rebutted defensively.

 _Phil_ was Techno’s good friend?

The fact didn’t come as a surprise to Ranboo. What surprised him more was that he didn’t realise it before. Phil disappearing before daybreak and coming back only once the sun had set—if he was travelling this far out to the snowy plains, of course he’d be away the whole day. Why didn’t he just move in with Techno already?

He rubbed his face with open palms. If the Butcher Army found out, all hell would break loose. Well, maybe not all, but most of it. Phil didn’t have as horrifying a reputation as Techno did, but he still did have one. A reputation. But the Butcher Army had something he didn’t have: numbers.

Ranboo _really_ wanted to move out of that country.

And speaking of Phil and his prowess. “Tommy, do you really think the both of us could handle Phil?”

Tommy blinked at him, cramming in the last block of cobblestone. Now the rectangular room they stood in was fully lined with it. He looked at Ranboo, at the ladder going up, then at Ranboo again. “You’re right.”

Ranboo drew in a breath and squared his shoulders.

“No, no, no no—we have _leverage_ over him.” Ranboo squinted at him skeptically. “You see, he and The Blade are pals and all, right? So if _we_ threaten to expose _The Blade’s_ location, then he doesn’t have any choice to come with us!”

That… might work. Sure, there was nothing stopping Techno from massacring them all, but there did exist the off chance that he would be overwhelmed by numbers. It didn’t actually have to happen; only the prospect had to exist so his friend would feel the risk of not cooperating.

Were they _that_ close that Phil would risk his own hide for Techno? That was nice and heartwarming. They were also going to exploit this soon. “I feel like Phil could just kill us immediately and that would be that,” Ranboo said flatly.

“No,” Tommy retaliated in a grumble, but his wavering voice gave away his uncertainty.

This was a plan that was already falling apart at the seams and they hadn’t even started. Ranboo didn’t even know what _intel_ , as Tommy put it, that Phil could offer them. They might even be better holding him hostage, provided they could even get a hold of him.

Was this really what he should be doing? Ranboo hung over the thought for a couple of seconds. Maybe telling the rest in L’Manberg would be the most ethical. Or maybe not—because that would be jeopardising their safety. In the very likely event Techno located him and managed to… _get rid_ of him, he didn’t want to drag the others down with him.

Besides, they were kind of already this far into a plan. Ranboo exhaled.

“How about we threaten”—he cringed at the word—“him like this: one of us captures him and if he fights back then the other will spill the secret.”

Tommy clapped his hands together, mouth open and brows lifted like Ranboo had just discovered another principle the world worked by. “That’s _perfect_! You could capture him!”

“Yeah—wait a minute. _I_ should capture him?”

“You live in L’Manberg,” Tommy pointed out matter-of-factly. “I am exiled, you know, big man.”

Ranboo deeply regretted bringing the idea up at all.

There they had it, set in stone: for better or for worse, they were going to do a Philza kidnapping, and Ranboo really had no idea what they were going to do after that. Ask Techno to lay off? He didn’t know what kind of intel they could even obtain. Tommy just seemed thoroughly thrilled at the aspect of kidnapping someone. Naturally. Him being in exile left his mischief unchecked, and also unsatiated.

Once again, the sun was setting. Ranboo headed back down to the shore to untie his boat.

Tommy gave him a pat on the shoulder before he boarded his boat. Ranboo tilted his head down over his shoulder to look at him.

“It’ll work out, big man.”

Ranboo pressed his lips together. A small smile crept its way onto them.

“I really hope so.”

* * *

No, actually, couldn’t he just _ask_ Phil politely?

Tommy was an influencer. Not in the celebrity kind, but the kind that influenced people because he sounded so firm and passionate about his beliefs that in his presence, you might sometimes be swayed, just a little, if you had a modicum of respect for him. And Ranboo had more than a modicum of respect for him, so he’d been thoroughly swayed back at Logstedshire.

Now, the prospect just felt a bit stupid. Kidnapping? Was there really a need for it? Unless everything he’d been shown was a facade, Phil was a kind person. They could just talk it out. Phil might even help him convince Techno not to slaughter him. Yes, worse come to worst, they could proceed with Tommy’s dubious kidnapping plan. But for now, it was a little unnecessary.

L’Manberg was quiet at night. As questionable as its inhabitants were, it was a pretty place. This remodel of the country was built over a crater, wooden planks bridging across the chasm, houses lined up neatly along the path. Floating lanterns hung in the air like lazy fireflies. From the structure alone, it was a peaceful and quaint country. Except it really wasn’t. Also, people had a habit of putting up grotesque and wanted posters all over the place. It was actually a bit disturbing.

He hadn’t come back that late. Or, at least, not as late as when he’d been bashed over the head by Techno, but it was unusually empty when he returned back to the docks. He’d usually see _someone._ Sometimes Tubbo went fishing at night, sometimes Niki would sit at the edge and kick at the surface of the rolling waves. Sometimes Bad would be scooping up buckets of water for a pet project of his. Sometimes you could see the ghost of Wilbur hovering over the waters and off into the darkness until daybreak. Now there was no such sight: just the quiet mumbling of the lake surging gently, shimmering under the moonlight. Ranboo liked it better this way. Quiet. No voices.

He took a step further up the platform. He was aching all over from bracing himself the whole day. It was impossible to know when and where he’d be jumped, since he assumed Techno wanted him dead at earliest convenience, although he hadn’t picked up any alarm bells throughout the entire day. Maybe because he’d been away from L’Manberg, which was where Techno knew for a fact was where he lived. But it was fine. Phil could help him. He was sure of it.

Speaking of Phil, why were there so many people outside his house?

Ranboo swung up the stairs by rotating around the railings, skipping three steps at a time, crossing the distance in barely a few seconds to reach the back of the crowd. Practically all the residents had gathered around outside Phil’s house like the audience to a performance; he had to shoulder his way through like a snake weaving through tufts of grass up to the front, stepping closer to the root of the commotion.

The door to Phil’s house was open. Phil himself stood squarely in the middle of his room, face set into an irked frown, limbs bent, poised for defence. It was natural, seeing as how a crowd arced around the entrance to his house, and one of them in particular—Quackity, to name—was absolutely delirious.

“Phil, you either tell us where Technoblade is, or you are living with those goddamn boots for the rest of your life,” he snarled, the grip around his sword so tight his knuckles were white.

On Phil’s feet were a pair of silver boots, glowing iridescent with a sheen of hazy purple coating them. Ranboo knew those. The house arrest boots. Its enchantment was a complicated process and had to be personalised for every victim, but when forged, it was a huge asset to the jailer and a huge pain to the jailee.

Also, it meant Phil was under house arrest.

What?

“I already told you I don’t know anything,” Phil said stubbornly, his exasperated expression looking more like he was dealing with a group of toddlers rather than government officials.

As for Ranboo, his own face had frozen in a blank expression. How had they known?

Someone tugged at the hem of his shirt. “Ranboo,” Tubbo muttered quietly.

“I was out visiting Tommy,” Ranboo replied absentmindedly, eyes trained on Philza.

“No, not that. Phil…”

“That’s fucking bullshit. There’s _literally_ a compass with Techno’s name on it in your house.”

Ranboo’s head spun. There was?

“Really?” Phil sounded amused. “Then why don’t you just take it?”

“You threw it into the fucking fire before I could! Don’t play dumb!”

“I don’t know. Sounds sus.”

Tubbo was nudging Ranboo. “I don’t know about this. Phil might not be lying. Maybe he’s not even involved with all of this.”

No, he definitely was.

But they didn’t have to know that. They didn’t have to get involved. They still didn’t know where Techno lived, they still didn’t have a personal bounty on their heads from Techno. They could still get away from all of this unscathed.

He had to stop them.

“I don’t think he is, either,” Ranboo told Tubbo. In a louder voice: “Quackity, maybe you have the wrong idea.”

Quackity whipped round to Ranboo so quickly the tip of his sword grazed by his chin. Ranboo withdrew his head a little. “What do you mean, _I_ got the wrong fucking idea?! Phil literally had a compass with Techno’s name on it. You literally cannot fucking tell me Phil doesn’t know shit.”

Ranboo almost cringed. Why did that have to be so incriminating? How was he going to get them out of this?

Folding his enormous black wings around himself, Phil riposted, “That isn’t true. I had a compass, but it didn’t have Techno’s name on it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Quackity challenged fiercely, directing his sword back to threaten Phil. “Then why did you throw it away in front of my fucking face when I saw it?”

“Because it was broken,” Phil answered, without even missing a beat.

Ranboo turned to the rest of the crowd. “Did anyone else see it?”

Tubbo shook his head.

“Fundy was with me,” Quackity insisted.

At his name, Fundy’s head snapped to face them, like he’d been in a trance.

“I was,” he confirmed.

“So you saw it? The compass with Techno’s name?”

“No, not really.”

Quackity’s chest heaved and he muttered a colourful expletive.

“Maybe you got the wrong idea,” Ranboo repeated, inwardly praying to high heaven that Quackity would just buy that suggestion already. Quackity’s argument was weak—well, no, it was actually quite solid and probably very true, but no one else knew that. Phil was a kind and trustworthy person and everyone believed so. Over Quackity’s irrational words sprouted from his jarring hatred of Techno, people would find themselves sympathising more with Phil. Hopefully.

It did mean possibly ending up on Quackity’s hit list, but that was fine. He was willing to compromise, if that meant keeping everyone else safe. Besides, Techno was probably a far more petrifying hitman. Adding Quackity to the list of people who were after his head wasn’t going to do much impact.

The glare directed up at him, a steely cold pair of narrowed eyes, still didn’t feel good to be the target of. “Are you trying to protect Phil?”

“Yes,” Ranboo said plainly, because it was true.

The tension in Phil’s wings loosened as he grinned. “Thank you, Ranboo.”

“Why’re you protecting him?”

“Phil is—” Ranboo struggled to find the words with so many eyes behind boring into him. “Phil wouldn’t try to hurt anyone. I trust him.” Why was Phil now giving him a silent, faltering look?

“I think so, too,” Tubbo agreed, and following his statement, murmurs of similar expressions rose from the crowd.

Most people believed in Phil’s false innocence. Ranboo caught his breath. Good. That was good. Quackity was fixing him with a look of contempt, the same way others had expressed disgust at his half-half species, but Ranboo steeled himself a small smile back. Now was no time to be a coward.

“Fine,” Quackity finally spat, turning around halfway before sticking his sword back in Phil’s direction. “But this doesn’t absolve him of all suspicion. He’ll be under house arrest until he speaks up or I say so.”

“But you won’t threaten him anymore?”

“I’m threatening him with house arrest.”

Good enough. Phil wouldn’t spill any secrets, he was sure, and they could just wait out Quackity’s suspicion. Ranboo would have to talk to Phil, in private, about a lot of things. About whether he could help him with Technoblade, and what he should do to get him out of house arrest eventually. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to the… _advanced interrogation techniques._ He wasn’t a stickler for morals, but that would be pushing it.

As if a bigger force working against him had read his mind, Tubbo offered, “You can be in charge of interrogating him if that helps you, Big Q.”

Ranboo blinked over at Tubbo. Quackity sniffed, unappeased, but still said, “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Good,” Tubbo said, with an air of finality, like the whole matter had just finished. Ranboo opened his mouth. Would he still be able to talk to Phil in private if Quackity was in charge—? “You’ve been staring an awful lot up there, Fundy.”

Fundy distractedly nodded at Tubbo’s words.

“Is there something up there?”

“No… I mean…” he stuttered slowly. Ranboo craned his neck up to have a gander at what Fundy might’ve been staring at. “I was just thinking… did we always have that flag back there?”

Rounding across Tubbo, Ranboo took a better look; behind Phil’s house, the corner of a piece of cloth billowed. It was much too pale of a blue to be part of the dark shade of L’Manberg’s flag, and if he strained his eyes he could see the white puffy cotton lining the edges. That didn’t look like a flag. It looked more like…

Something that sounded like a choked breath caught his attention again. Phil’s face was set into a firm frown, solemn and urgent.

“I’d fucking run, if I were you.”

Then a sizzling firework dove right at them.

Ranboo barely had enough time to duck before he heard the explosion go off behind him, crackling like a festival, except the screams that followed weren’t out of excitement but terror. Heat leapt up behind him, swallowing up the cold of the night, and he whipped round to find flames from the aftermath licking at the wooden platforms. The crowd was loosening and beginning to disperse, mingled with shrill cries. Tubbo was already hollering at them to calm down. Normally, Ranboo should’ve joined him, but his eyes were trained at a figure darting from floating lantern to lantern with the agility of a weightless cheetah.

His stomach felt like a stone had just dropped in it.

Quackity was the first to confirm his fears.

“It’s _Technoblade_!” he roared, sword drawn fully and arm poised to block with his shield. “Everyone, on guard!”

“Don’t be _dumb_!” Phil was yelling from inside the house, far back enough from the conflict. Who exactly were his words directed to? Whoever it was, they fell on deaf ears.

At Quackity’s command, a wave of steel scraping against steel sounded as the people of L’Manberg drew their weapons, bowstrings pulled back taut and at the ready. Another bombardment of deadly fireworks landed, this time further away from where Ranboo stood in front of Phil’s house.

Where Ranboo stood, his legs feeling as heavy as lead, nerves on fire.

Technoblade was here for him.

The next barrage of fireworks snapped him out of his trance. Arrows flew off from the ground, arcing into the black sky, their silhouettes flickering as they sailed between the reach of the lanterns. L’Manberg was ablaze. He caught sight of a burnt shoulder, almost black from being charred. Plumes of smoke snaked up in the air in dark clouds. A body had collapsed onto the floor.

Ranboo turned back to Phil and lunged at him, catching him by the shoulders.

“Tell him to stop,” he wheezed breathlessly.

Phil grimaced, placing his hands on Ranboo’s arm as if to pull him away. “What are you—”

“He’s here for _me_ ,” he rasped, and Phil fell silent. “He wants me dead, I—tell him to stop, _please._ I’ll do anything—” Just the thought of the others getting hurt, getting _killed_ because of him was weighing down heavy in his belly like rot.

“Alright…” Phil said uncertainly, brows furrowed. “I would, but he’s kind of far—”

Ranboo tore away from Philza and dove back into the crowd. Deadly splashes of blue, red and white, a festival of colours, sparked off against him, the flames slipping off of him harmlessly. Someone called his name, but it was lost in the crackling fires and chorus of shouts and screams. Despite wanting him dead, Techno had been firing further and further away from where he’d been, and Ranboo knew why: Phil was Techno’s friend, and Techno didn’t want to hurt Phil.

But killing everyone else sat just well with him. He shouldered past someone as he pushed through, trodding on someone’s foot, head raised as his eyes followed the leaping figure, almost like he was in a trance. Someone yanked at his ghast arm as if to pull him to safety, but it slipped out with ease. The night was illuminated with an array of colours, a butchery festival. Beneath his feet, he stepped on a puddle of sticky and red.

There was no particular reason that Ranboo could say aloud. Maybe the sick, twisted feeling in his gut didn’t have a name to it. All he knew was that people were getting hurt, people were in pain, because of him, _he_ was the one who had crossed Techno, and he couldn’t stomach another moment of it.

When he wove out of the crowd, it was clearer: the human figure dangling from the floating lanterns, crossbow loaded.

“Technoblade!” he screamed until his voice went hoarse, and maybe he’d just been too caught up in everything, but did the next launch of fireworks pause for just a second? His feet pedalled onwards, almost like they were on autopilot. “You’re here for _me_ , right?”

The next wave of fireworks did not land. Yet. Arrows still shot off from the forces on the ground.

“Ranboo!” Someone clung onto his arm with fierce desperation, jerking him around to look at them. The dark bags under Tubbo’s eyes had never gone away, and now they were glistening wet with tears. “What are you doing?! Don’t get so close! Take out your shield, at the very least!”

He took in a shaky breath. Tubbo. He’d lost almost everything. He’d started up a nation and now one of his co-founders was dead and the other, his best friend, was long gone into exile for the unforeseeable future. The weight of rule lay heavily on him. Whispers around the country gossiped of a president with no power over his own land. Maybe he desperately wanted someone to help him. Maybe he needed Ranboo.

The fire behind him burned brighter.

“I’m sorry.”

Ranboo shook off Tubbo’s grip until he threw him off, then ran further down the emptier parts of L’Manberg, past the houses, down the wooden path. Techno’s form drew nearer and nearer, the rapid pace of firing his ammo slowed.

Glass shattered overhead, prisms of shards scattering down below. A floating lantern had just been shot. Ranboo didn’t look back at it, not even when he heard an explosion high above and all the lanterns simultaneously went out, the sky now only littered with streaks of blue, red and white. The lights. Techno had taken out the lights, probably as a tactical advantage, and now Ranboo could only catch glimpses of him as a blurry shadow against the violently-lit sky.

His feet, too. He’d forgotten he couldn’t see his feet and that led to the tips of his shoes scuffing against the walk as it sloped upwards, his whole balance thrown forward. In the momentum he barreled forward, his whole head spinning as the world did until his palms caught the ground and he steadied himself up onto his haunches.

Drops of blood dripped onto the ground in front of him.

Ranboo looked up, gaze bleary and dotted with residual spots from the bright lights. He could barely make anything out, apart from the figure looming over him, long hair billowing in the gust, eyes glowing like an eerie red light in the dark.

In any other situation, Ranboo might’ve been awestruck.

He simply dipped his head forward and rested his forehead on one of his knees, arms curling around himself in a bracing hug. This was it. Once he was done away with, all of this would stop. Techno’s attack, and maybe the voices wouldn’t follow him into the afterlife.

There was a pause. He waited for something, _anything_ , like a sharp pain scything through his neck or a tremendous force enough to shatter his skull, what he thought was the inevitable, but all he heard was the whistling of the wind and the distant cries back where he knew the crowd was.

“I’m gonna have to borrow you for a bit.”

A dull blow on the back of his head whacked him into unconsciousness.

That seemed to be happening a lot lately.


End file.
